Hockey blogger Eklund lists Preds defenseman Greg de Vries and AWOL-forward Alexander Radulov among his projected 25 NHL players who are most likely to be traded this season. DeVries has been traded on several occasions during his career, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him on the block as the trade deadline approaches in early 2009.

Trading Radulov might land the Preds something for nothing in return for the wayward sniper, but would his rights be worth more in a mid-season trade than any future compensation the team would receive if he never suits up for Nashville again? Probably not.

There will be plenty of defensive talent on display tonight at the Sommet Center. The Preds’ success against Calgary this evening–and for the entire season–will depend in large part on how Nashville’s defensemen perform.

The 2003 NHL Entry Draft held in Nashville offered a bumper crop of quality defensemen. Nashville’s Ryan Suter, the seventh player overall taken in the first round, Calgary’s Dion Phaneuf, the ninth player selected in the first round; Nashville’s Shea Weber, the 47th player overall taken in the second round and Kevin Klein, the third player picked by Nashville in the second round and the 37th overall, should all be on display tonight at 7 when the Flames and Predators meet at the Sommet Center.

Although offense has rarely been a source of strength for the Preds, Nashville’s shown early on this season that it can score goals when it needs them. It hasn’t shown that it can stop opponents from doing the same on a consistent basis, as high-score setbacks against St. Louis, Dallas and Columbus attest. The Preds have long been lauded for their depth at the defenseman position, and that’s true even though the team selected Ryan Suter over Dion Phaneuf in the 2003 draft. If Nashville is going to qualify for its fifth consecutive postseason this coming spring, that depth had better translate into strong defense soon.

Blackberry billionaire Jim Balsillie has inadvertently done as much to help keep the Preds in Nashville as nearly anyone:

Balsillie, the former co-chairman of Blackberry maker Research In Motion, had been in line last year to buy the Predators from former owner Craig Leipold. That deal fell through, however, when Balsillie angered many in the NHL, including Leipold, for making overt plans to move the team to Canada. He had a similar situation occur in 2006 when he attempted to purchase the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The end result of Balsillie’s actions bought time for a group of local investors led by businessman David Freeman to put together a deal to purchase the team. [Emphasis added.]

I don’t like reading that Balsillie is once again lurking and looking to relocate Nashville’s NHL franchise, but I do like seeing the side effects: Every time Balsillie’s name appears in local headlines, it’s a reminder to all of us who care about the Predators that we have to keep doing everything we can to support the team. It would be easy for the city to let its guard down now that the franchise is under local ownership. Thanks to Balsillie, that may never happen.

I’d like to see Alexander Radulov return to Nashville as much as any Preds fan, but the team’s luck in developing Russian players speaks for itself:

Russians drafted by the Predators:
1998 — Denis Arkhipov, C, Four seasons with Preds, five in NHL. Now playing in Russia.
1999 — Yevgeny Pavlov, C, One season in North America, did not reach NHL.
Alexander Krevsun, RW, One season in North America, did not reach NHL.
Konstantin Panov, RW, Five seasons in North America, did not reach NHL.
2001 — Timofei Shishkanov, LW, Two games with Preds, 24 games in NHL. Now playing in Russia.
Denis Platonov, RW, Three games in North America. Did not reach NHL.
Anton Lavrentiev, D, Never played in North America.
2003 —Konstantin Glazachev, LW, Never played in North America.
Grigory Shafigulin, C, Never played in North America.
Rustam Sidikov, G, Never played in North America.
Andrei Mukhachev, D, Never played in North America.
2004 — Alexander Radulov, RW, Two seasons with Preds. Now playing in Russia.
Denis Kulyash, D, Never played in North America.

There’s an inherent risk in selecting any player under any circumstances. When home is half a world away and a competing league is emerging as incentive to stay there to play, it’s just not worth the gamble. This advice may be playing into the KHL’s hands, but it can only help the Preds, who need all the help they can get from the draft.

Much of this is posturing when the NHL and the Kontinental Hockey League still have issues to work out about future player transfers, but it sounds like it could lead to a worst-case scenario for the Preds:

Calling Alexander Radulov’s jump to a Russian team an issue of the past, Continental Hockey League president Alexander Medvedev said Monday “it’s time to look to the future.” That comment and others did nothing to thaw an icy relationship between the KHL and the NHL in the wake of Radulov signing a three-year deal with Salavat Yulaev Ufa last month despite having a year left on his contract with the Predators.

Medvedev is pushing for a signed transfer agreement with the NHL — a formal set of rules governing player movement between countries — and says it would eliminate these kinds of situations in years to come. “We need a strict enforceable scheme that will fix all the rights and the positions of the players on both sides of the ocean,” he said.

But NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said a meeting between the two sides to discuss the transfer agreement is now in jeopardy. “I don’t know whether the Sept. 4 meeting will go forward or not,” Daly said. “We are happy to discuss a possible transfer agreement, but the Radulov issue needs to be resolved first.”

The International Ice Hockey Federation is investigating the signing of Radulov, as well as the contracts of five other players involved in transfers between the two leagues. The IIHF is expected to announce a ruling soon, but Medvedev said he doesn’t expect it to make much of an impact on Radulov’s situation. Because there was no transfer agreement in place between Russia and the NHL at the time of Radulov’s signing, Medvedev said the deal broke no rules. “I don’t see the legal arguments to force the player to come back,” he said.

It will be grossly unfair for the Preds if Radulov’s departure and breach of contract turn out to be the wake-up call that lead the NHL to agree to terms with the KHL on player movement. If both sides agree that the damage is done and try to move on, the Preds are hurt even more than if no agreement exists between the leagues: Other teams won’t lose their Russian stars while Nashville already has. Daly doesn’t sound resigned to that result yet, and I hope he and the NHL maintain that position.

J.P. Dumont continues to stand out as an excellent signing for the Preds. He’s highly skilled, he’s loyal and he understands the fan base.

“[Alexander Radulov] will have a lot of things to explain, not just to the players, but to the fans,” Dumont said. “I have been around all summer long and I have been crushed with questions about Radulov. “I don’t know what to answer back. One thing I love about Nashville is people are proud of their teams and their city. It has been a slap in the face for our fans. But we don’t know the full story and until we do it is going to be hard to comment on it.”

If Radulov does cross back over to the Western Hemisphere anytime in the foreseeable future, I hope he spends as much time as possible with Dumont. I hope Coach Trotz makes them roommates. We need more players like Dumont, who are stars on the ice and class acts outside the rink, but what NHL team doesn’t?

I hope someone can appreciate the irony that I am linking to this Wall Street Journal editorial with this post. Read on if you are curious.

WSJ Assistant Editorial Features Editor Joseph Rago has strong criticisms for bloggers. We’re bottom feeders, for one: (I suppose that’s a harsher way of describing the Long Tail.)

The blogs are not as significant as their self-endeared curators would like to think. Journalism requires journalists, who are at least fitfully confronting the digital age. The bloggers, for their part, produce minimal reportage. Instead, they ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps … The larger problem with blogs, it seems to me, is quality. Most of them are pretty awful. Many, even some with large followings, are downright appalling.

Honestly, I think he’s probably right. Meaningful content is a challenge for those of us who blog for enjoyment rather than for a living. So many blogs are created and then abandoned, and most of us (including me most of the time) are responding to news generated by the mainstream media, not sharing new information.

Rago playfully refers to bloggers as fools by quoting author Joseph Conrad. Blogs are, in his opinion and Conrad’s words, “Written by fools to be read by imbeciles.” I wonder if this is the whole truth, though. Will it always be this way? If blogging is peaking, as has been recently reported, will the cream rise to the surface of the crop? As Technorati has pointed out, “sheer dedication pays off over time” when it comes to blogging, and that may mean that blogging will improve as serious writers stick around and continue to get better at it. Let’s hope so.